The bride let go of her father and went and hugged her mother. “Ma! Where are you sending me!” she sobbed, as she slumped on her mother. The gold-worked sador she wore fell off her shoulder. The vermilion phot of xendur on her forehead and the line drawn with sandalwood merged. The bride’s mother, too, was quite distraught. The people who had come to see off the bride wept piteously.
Suddenly, over the sobs and the wails came a shout, “Hold on to the mirror carefully! It was about to fall just now!”
The people surrounding the bride looked to see where it came from. The bride’s elder brother was Bhargob Choudhury, an important official posted in the oil town of Duliajan. He was supervising the loading on to the truck of the furniture that would accompany the bride to her new home. The bride’s Bordeuta, her father’s elder brother, Headmaster Rammohan Choudhury was giving directions to her second eldest brother, Dr Ranjan Choudhury in a soft voice. The bride’s elder Khura, Murulimohan Choudhury, her father’s younger brother, who was an officer in the Agriculture Department, was, with her younger Khura, Krishnamohan Choudhury, the land revenue officer, organising the vehicles in which the people who would accompany the bride to her in-laws’ home would travel. The bride’s elder brother Bhargob would have to return to Duliajan this very day. There was no question of them travelling in his Maruti. Ranjan had not yet bought a car. He travelled everywhere on his motorbike. The headmaster’s car was a second-hand Ambassador, how could they send that? There was a dent in the place where a cow had bumped into it last year. Besides, there was a danger of it stalling and coming to a halt on the road. The land revenue officer and the agriculture officer had brought their jeeps. Naturally, it was a matter of prestige, and they could not possibly use the vehicles brought by the groom’s family to send the bride away.
So, who could they ask to send a vehicle to take the bridal party to the bridegroom’s home? No doubt there were three cars at the wedding venue. But how could they ask some distant relatives for the loan of their cars for two days?
“Dada, the person who had supplied the firewood is asking for payment.” A thin man wearing filthy clothes, covered with a variety of stains was cringing before the land revenue officer and agriculture officer.
“Didn’t we give you three hundred rupees yesterday? Why don’t you give him from that amount?” The land revenue officer’s forehead wrinkled in irritation.
“The fees for the handcart, the electric wires from that amount…”
“Okay, okay, there’s no need to give a list, here, take the money.” The agricultural officer threw a hundred rupee note in the direction of the thin, withered man.
“Really, this man is becoming impossible…” The agricultural officer’s face, too, showed a great deal of annoyance.
Indeed, the presence of this man who did not know how to speak with respect or do any kind of work properly was annoying almost everybody at that wedding.
“He was going towards the bridegroom’s people, saying he was the bride’s youngest Khura, her father’s youngest brother. He had a gamosa around his neck, and he was approaching them with folded hands. It was I who somehow managed to send him off to the back…”
“The bridegroom’s maternal uncle, the Forest Ranger Bora in fact asked me how that person was related to the bride. Somehow, I managed to change the subject. What was the need for him to go around with the bota of tamol paan in his hands, offering them to the bridegroom’s party and introducing himself as the bride’s youngest Khura?”
“He’s inherited all of our Deuta’s property, can’t he stay in a decent way? And the woman he married! They have a large brood of children.”
“Stupid!” The land revenue officer crushed his lit cigarette with his shoes on the ground.
The bride had, in the meantime, reached the gates. She was throwing fistfuls of rice behind her without turning. This was essential or the Goddess of Wealth, the Lokhimi who resided in her father’s home would leave. Her Borma, the wife of her father’s elder brother, held her hand firmly and directed her while she flung the rice back with trembling hands. She wept so hard that her whole body shook. A woman around the bride scolded her, as she seemed reluctant to go to the bridegroom’s house, “Don’t take the Lokhimi from your mother’s house, pay attention now and scatter the rice behind you.”
Another woman added, “Your aunt is right. Now you can’t see the path ahead because of your tears, but once you are in your husband’s house, you’ll forget everything.”
The people who were to accompany the bride approached the land revenue officer to find out about which car they would be going in.
The land revenue officer looked around and called out to his younger brother who was sitting in a corner of the decorative canopy and smoking a bidi. Throwing his bidi away with alacrity, Horimohon came running up.
“Go quickly, get Nimai driver’s car. I’ve already spoken to him.”
“Going, Maju Dada,” said Hori to his middle brother, and looked around helplessly.
“What’s the matter? Why are you shilly-shallying?”
“I mean…a bicycle…and I wonder where Nimai lives…”
“Take a ricksha. Ask around for directions to Nimai’s home.”
Hori scrounged around in the pockets of his lopsided kurta.
“You don’t even have the fare for the ricksha, didn’t Dada just give you a hundred rupees?” On hearing the officer’s rough voice, Hori hung his head. “Well, the supplier of firewood came and asked for some more money…”
“Okay okay…here take this…twenty rupees.”
“Stupid.” This time round, the agricultural officer pronounced the word.
The bride was escorted to the car by her brother-inlaw. Once more, there was a fresh round of weeping and auspicious ululation as she departed from her paternal home. A few people climbed into Nimai driver’s vehicle to accompany the bride to her marital home. The truck loaded with the household objects that the bride was taking with her also started. The gate to the compound which till just recently had been thronging with people emptied. It was still adorned with auspicious strings of mango leaves, plantain saplings and brass xorais but now, it was as though a weariness had descended on all.
Excerpted with permission from ‘The Yellow Flip-Flops’ in The Owl, the River and the Valley, Arupa Patangia Kalita, translated from the Assamese by Mitra Phukan, Penguin India.
